Starlink satellites falling video filmed from Earth

A dramatic video serves as a memorial to a star-crossed satellite that lived fast and died very young. SpaceX launched 49 satellites to low Earth orbit on Feb. 3 to further beef up the company’s huge and growing Starlink internet mega constellation. But most of those newly lofted spacecraft will never beam any broadband signals down, thanks to a powerful sun eruption. Charged particles from that solar blast spawned a geomagnetic storm on Feb. 4, substantially increasing the density of Earth’s atmosphere and thus the drag experienced by the new, low-flying Starlink batch, SpaceX representatives reported on Tuesday (Feb. 8). As a result, up to 40 of the 49 satellites are expected to come crashing back to Earth over the coming days. Some of them have already given up the ghost, including an unlucky satellite that burned up in the skies over Puerto Rico early Monday morning (Feb. 7). That spacecraft’s fiery demise was captured on video by a camera operated by the Sociedad de Astronomia del Caribe, a Puerto Rico-b